The power of the bureaucrat
We all know that the executive cannot sit down with a simple program and create a budget for the coming year. The executive has to rely on bureaucrats in the "budget" office and all the other ministries to provide expertise and accurate estimates of income and costs.
What happens if the bureaucrats have agendas of their own? In the British model, the bureaucrats are supposed to pretty much be the tools of the elected government. Of course, even in the United Kingdom, top bureaucrats influence budgets and policy. In Nigeria, bureaucrats have long held even greater influence.
President Buhari suspects that influence has led to overspending and corruption. He may now have some evidence.
Top Civil Servants May Be Fired For Sabotaging President Buhari’s Budget
SaharaReporters has learned that the Muhammadu Buhari administration was considering firing several top civil servants who acted in various ways to sabotage or undermine the government’s efforts to produce budget proposals that reflected financial prudence and frugality. Two top administration sources told our correspondent that “bureaucratic resistance and entrenched systemic corrupt practices dogged every move by the Presidency during the preparation of the 2016 budget”…
One source stated that, after learning that the Presidency was considering a large budget of possibly N8 trillion in order to significantly increase capital expenditure, some bureaucrats jacked up the budget proposal to N9.7 trillion for overhead and capital spending…
According to our source, President Buhari found the bureaucrats’ games infuriating, but decided to maintain his cool in order to meet the deadline for presentation of the budget in line with the laws and regulations governing the budget process. “While Mr. President has always stood for prudence and against waste, the bureaucrats were sneaking in controversial provisions that clearly didn’t represent the president’s standards and priorities,” said our source…
Our sources disclosed that many of the controversial provisions in the budget were essentially smuggled in by what one of them described as “the budget mafia in the civil service, made up of people who consider the period of budgeting as their time of massive opportunity to arrange the stealing of public funds.”…
The source added, “Some people were so bent on exploiting the system that the time was simply not sufficient to stop them. But since the budget is only an estimate, the implementation part now offers the Presidency the opportunity to tame the corrupt intentions and practices.”…
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The Comparative Government and Politics Review Checklist.
Two pages summarizing the course requirements to help you review and study for the final and for the big exam in May. . It contains a description of comparative methods, a list of commonly used theories
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Labels: bureaucracy, Nigeria, power, public spending
MegaProjects in China
The Great Wall of China. The Three Gorges Dam. The Grand Canal. And now The Great South-North Water Transfer Project.
The beginnings of the Great Wall go back 2,700 years. The Three Gorges Dam was begun in 1994 and completed in 2012. The Grand Canal, linking the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers, was begun 2,500 years ago and the various sections were linked together during the Sui dynasty. All of these audacious projects stand as monuments to Chinese technology and capacity.
Now comes a new huge project. Is this a sign of powerful state? Is it a sign of mis-analyzed economics? Or just as sensible as the water systems that feed California's Central Valley and Los Angeles?
A canal too far: The world’s biggest water-diversion project will do little to alleviate water scarcity
The new waterway is part of the biggest water-diversion scheme in the world: the second arm of what is known as the South-North Water Diversion Project. This is designed to solve an age-old imbalance. The north of China has only a fifth of the country’s naturally available fresh water but two-thirds of the farmland. The problem has grown in recent decades because of rapid urban growth and heavy pollution of scarce water supplies.
The result is a chronic shortage… In 2009 the government said that nearly half the water in seven main rivers in China was unfit for human consumption. All this has encouraged ever greater use of groundwater. Much of this is now polluted too…
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| South-North Water Transfer Project |
In late October the… new watercourse… will push 13 billion cubic metres of water more than 1,200km from the Danjiangkou dam in the central province of Hubei to the capital, Beijing. The aim is to allow industry and agriculture to keep functioning… The new canal will help avert an imminent crisis. But the gap between water supply and demand will remain large and keep growing…
By increasing supply, the government is failing to confront the real source of the problem: high demand for water and inefficient use of it. Chinese industry uses ten times more water per unit of production than the average in industrialised countries… A big reason for this is that water in China is far too cheap. In May 2014 Beijing introduced a new system that makes tap water more expensive the more people use. But prices are still far from market levels…
[Officials] do not want to scare industries away from cities by charging them more for water. They also do not want to face angry protests by residents. Hence they prefer shifting water around in pipes and canals. Britt Crow-Miller of Portland State University describes the diversion project as “a physical demonstration of political power”…
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Labels: China, environment, power, state capacity
Demonstrating capacity and projecting power
China's military continues its efforts to demonstrate what it can do and to portray China as an actor on the world (or at least Asian) stage.
China Navy starts West Pacific drill
A flotilla with China's Nanhai Fleet entered the West Pacific Ocean on Monday to start a drill there after exercises in the Indian Ocean.
The three-ship flotilla consists of amphibious landing craft Changbaishan and destroyers Wuhan and Haikou, according to military sources.
After reaching the Indian Ocean on Jan. 29, the ships conducted 10 exercises including anti-pirate, joint search and rescue as well as damage control drills…
China says it has the right to establish Air Defense ID Zones
China’s Foreign Ministry says China has the right to establish air defense identification zones, and take all necessary measures to maintain national security.
The comments by the ministry follow a Japanese newspaper report that claimed China is planning to establish another air defense identification zone, this time in the South China Sea.
The Foreign Ministry says China is positive about its relations with ASEAN countries. China has accused Japan of trying to divert international attention, while it revises its pacifist constitution to expand its military.
China continues Diaoyu Islands patrol
Three China Coast Guard (CCG) vessels continued their patrol Sunday in the territorial waters surrounding the Diaoyu Islands, the State Oceanic Administration said.
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Labels: capacity, China, concepts, power
A three-sided conflict
A drug cartel takes over a Mexican state. Local vigilantes, perhaps with the help of a rival drug cartel, appear to win some fights against the local drug lords. Then the Mexican army arrives to keep the peace. Who has power? Who has legitimacy? Who has authority?
Knights Templar 'leader' captured in Michoacan
Mexican security forces have arrested three members of the Knights Templar drug cartel in the violence-hit state of Michoacan, officials say…
Hundreds of troops have recently been deployed to restore order after groups of vigilantes clashed with the gang.
The vigilantes accuse the government of not doing enough to protect locals from extortion and violence.
Many members of the so-called self-defence groups are refusing to heed the government's call to disarm…
Large areas of the western state have been under the control of the Knights Templar cartel. However, earlier this month, vigilante groups began occupying much of the gang's key footholds.
The Knights Templar, who claim to protect the local population from attacks from rival gangs, have accused the self-defence groups of siding with the New Generation drug cartel based in neighbouring Jalisco state…
The government of President Enrique Pena Nieto has repeatedly denied that it has lost its grip on Michoacan despite several troop surges in the state in the year since he came to office.
Michoacan: Mexico's failed state?
Michoacan, the Mexican state where troops were first deployed in 2007 to tackle the drug gangs, is in danger of spiralling out of control.
Vigilante groups armed with high-powered weapons of questionable origin have pushed out a powerful drug cartel, the Knights Templar, from some of their key footholds in a region called Tierra Caliente.
"This is a failed state," says Comandante Cinco, a self-defence leader in the village of Paracuaro.
He says the community militias emerged because people were tired of paying extortion money to the drug cartels while local police did nothing to protect them.
Worse still, many officers were in the pay of the cartel…
The entire village has turned out in the main square to hear the self-defence forces explain their plan for the future now that the cartel have been run out of town.
Some townsfolk are fearful of simply replacing one group of unknown armed men with another. Other people are holding up placards thanking the self-defence forces for taking on the Knights Templar…
Meanwhile the church now has entered the fray. The Bishop of Apatzingan, Miguel Patino, has also previously described the state as failed. Now he has published an open letter criticising the government's response to the crisis.
"The problem we have is that often we can't find any guarantee of security among our local authorities because they are compromised by the enemies of peace," the bishop told the BBC in the cathedral in Apatzingan.
"That's a serious problem because who can we turn to?"
For most citizens caught in the stand-off, the question of whether or not the state has failed is perhaps academic. Certainly, they see it as failing…
[A 2-minute video report from BBC reporter Will Grant accompanies this article.]
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Labels: authority, concepts, legitimacy, Mexico, politics, power
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